Over the next thirty-two years, warp engine development continued until Humanity's first warp 5 engine was created. This engine was capable of speeds that finally made interstellar travel in more survivable periods possible – that is, in days, weeks or months, instead of years. Consequently, Humanity was able to construct its first warp 5 capable starship, Enterprise, completed in 2151. Initially, Enterprise had a theoretical maximum speed of warp 4.5.

Enterprise had a standard crew complement of eighty-three Humans, with the addition of a Vulcan and a Denobulan; approximately a third of the crew was female. (ENT: "Oasis", "Rajiin", "E²")

In the final draft script of "Oasis", the female contingent aboard Enterprise was said to be "about" a third of the crew. This was clearly changed, as evidenced by the final version of the episode, to become "nearly" a third of the crew.

The historical significance of Enterprise was related in a drawing of the ship that hung in Archer's ready room; the image was part of a series of paintings, depicting the historical lineage of ships called Enterprise. (ENT: "Broken Bow")

The print of Enterprise, as well as the other paintings in this series, were made by John Eaves, who, due to an oversight on his part, had only twenty-four hours to produce the drawings. [1] For information on the other illustrations, see Captain's ready room.

The phase cannons were not installed until September of 2151, while Enterprise battled an unknown enemy. (ENT: "Silent Enemy") When a Mazarite ship attacked Enterprise in February 2152, the first shot disabled Enterprise's aft sensors. (ENT: "Singularity") Enterprise reached Warp 5 for the first time while attempting to outrun the Mazarite ship and carrying Vulcan ambassador V'Lar. (ENT: "Fallen Hero")

The final draft script of "Silent Enemy" established that, by the time of that episode, interior inspections of the ship were carried out by Captain Archer and Commander Charles "Trip" Tucker "on a regular basis since Enterprise was launched."

As part of dialogue included in the script for "Shadows of P'Jem" (both the first draft and the final draft) but not in the final edit of that episode, Enterprise was said to be six hours away from Coridan when Captain Archer informed T'Pol that she was about to be recalled to Vulcan in two days. In the final edit of the episode, there is no such indication of the distance between the ship and its destination of Coridan at that point in the story. Similarly, a reference to the ship being twenty hours away from Tesnia, in "Shuttlepod One", was written – in the episode's final draft script – as being forty hours away from the planet.

In the final draft script of ENT: "Desert Crossing", an ultimately unused piece of dialogue established that Enterprise's armaments, as of February 2152, consisted of "particle cannons, warheads, plenty of hand-weapons." In a conversation from that script that is not in the final version of the installment, Archer and Tucker spoke a lot about the "territory" they had covered on board Enterprise, which the captain remarked was "not even a fraction of what's out here" in space. They agreed they could think of "one or two" star systems they would have preferred not to have visited. "But," Archer commented, "all in all, there isn't much I'd change about the last nine months." Nodding in agreement, Tucker concluded, "It's been some ride." In a later scripted but dropped discussion from the same teleplay, Archer told Tucker the ship had so far visited sixteen Minshara class planets and Tucker gathered this meant the vessel's crew "held the record," at least for Humans.

By March of 2152, ten months after launching, Enterprise had engaged in armed conflicts with more than a dozen species. That month, the ship's mission was canceled when one of its shuttlepods appeared to have ignited tetrazinegas within the atmosphere of Paraagan II, killing 3,600 innocent colonists. It was this event, along with the ship's actions at other planets including P'Jem and Tandar Prime, that caused the Starfleet Command Council to recall Enterprise to Earth. (ENT: "Shockwave", "Shockwave, Part II") Ambassador Soval recommended that United Earth wait another ten to twenty years before trying another deep space exploration mission. (ENT: "Shockwave")

In unused dialogue from the final draft script of "Shockwave", Tucker reckoned Enterprise would probably "end up in mothballs in a couple of weeks."

In April of 2152, Enterprise struck a cloakedmine in a Romulanminefield and consequently suffered a large series of hull breaches. Another of the mines became attached to the ship's hull, pinning LieutenantMalcolm Reed to the hull. After Captain Archer failed to defuse this mine, the section of the ship's hull that Reed and the mine were attached to was separated from the rest of the ship, with Archer on it together with Reed.

Because a pair of Romulan Birds-of-Prey that were nearby charged their weapons, Enterprise's hull plating needed to be polarized, even despite the absence of the detached hull section. (ENT: "Minefield") The damage was so extensive, though, that the ship's port bow plating couldn't be polarized until the hull breaches were sealed. (ENT: "Dead Stop") After the mine was safely detonated, Enterprise rescued Archer and Reed, then vacated the area. (ENT: "Minefield")

Even before it was decided that Romulans would menace the ship in "Minefield", the idea of Enterprise's exterior being a major setting for the story was thought up. Brannon Braga later recalled, " The concept was, how cool would it be to tell a story that's set entirely on the hull of the ship, with Reed pinned to it? How far could we do it?" (Star Trek: Communicator issue 145, p. 24)

In the final draft script of "Minefield", the explosion (and resulting damage) on Enterprise's hull was stated to be in the "port-aft quarter" of the outer hull. However, this is changed to "port forward quarter" in the final version of the episode. The mine that attaches to the hull was referred to in the script as being on the "upper-fore quadrant," though this is instead said to be the "upper aft quadrant" in the final edit. Also in the script, the ship was said to be seven hundred meters from the detached hull section when the Romulans charged their weapons, though no such distance is given in the episode.

Parts of Enterprise's hull had to be specially built for "Minefield" but were discarded thereafter. "We had to throw the pieces away," recalled Production Designer Herman Zimmerman, "we just didn't have any room to store them, they were so large!" (Star Trek: Communicator issue 151, p. 59)

Enterprise at Kreetassa

It was estimated that repairing the damage to Enterprise would take, assuming the ship found some tritanium alloy, between three and four months. The ship was reduced to only short-range communications – as its subspace antenna had been damaged – and a possible maximum speed of warp 2.1. Fortunately, the craft was directed by a passing Tellarite vessel to an automated repair station.

Enterprise was repaired, though the crew was forced to destroy the facility when it was revealed that it had taken hostage one of their crew members. (ENT: "Dead Stop") A plasma injector nevertheless failed shortly thereafter, necessitating a trip to the Kreetassanhomeworld. There, the ship was gifted three plasma injectors, despite only needing one, and kept the other two as spares. (ENT: "A Night in Sickbay") Enterprise likewise picked up 2000 liters of deuterium from a miningcolony, whereas only 200 liters had been requested. (ENT: "Marauders")

Owing to the ship's actions in previous conflicts such as its latest with the Suliban and the battle with the Mazarites, Lieutenant Reed came to the opinion that Enterprise and its crew were taking too long to respond to potential threats, so he began developing a tactical alert system for the vessel. According to him, security aboard the craft had been a point of contention between himself and Captain Archer since Enterprise's launch, with Reed taking more of a proactive approach than the captain.

Enterprise passing through a debris field

Because the vessel's crew became affected by a dangerous type of mind-altering radiation from a nearby trinary star system, Enterprise had to be piloted through a debris field. The ship was steered by Archer almost single-handedly, though with navigational assistance from T'Pol, and the newly invented tactical alert was at one point instrumental in executing these maneuvers without the craft receiving too much damage. (ENT: "Singularity")

By September 18, 2152, Enterprise had travelled over 100 light years from Earth. In order to traverse a neutronic storm which reached the ship on that date, the ship's structural integrity was reinforced and the craft's power grid was deactivated, illuminating all shipboard areas in only blue emergency lights. These modifications were made by the crew, who took refuge in the vessel's catwalk together with their belongings. To accommodate the crew, the ship's warp reactor was shut down and numerous modifications were made to the catwalk. For example, command of the vessel was transferred from the main bridge to a temporary command post in one of the catwalk's compartments. The engineering team had only four hours to make the necessary changes. Upon addressing the crew with an initial speech whose audio was broadcast from the makeshift command area, Archer referred to Enterprise as "the sturdiest ship" in Starfleet.

Enterprise traversing a neutronic storm

After the vessel's hull plating was polarized, Enterprise shakily entered the neutronic storm, with early spatial turbulence that at first disabled the vessel's aft stabilizers. The ship continued to experience occasional turbulence, albeit mostly minor, through its duration in the storm, which was scheduled to take eight days. Also during that period, the vessel – while more than twenty light years away from the Takret homeworld – was invaded by the Takret Militia, who were under the impression the ship had been abandoned by its crew.

The military officers therefore worked on restoring power to the craft, though a three-person team of Enterprise officers set out to stop them, with the lives of the other crew members at stake. In an on-screen confrontation between Archer and the Takret captain, Archer threatened to destroy the ship. The Takret captain, who had been reading about the craft, extremely doubted Archer would do anything to even damage the vessel, but Takret Lieutenant Paltani did believe Archer.

The ship, heading towards a plasma eddy which gradually increased the turbulence felt aboard the craft, was successfully sabotaged by its crew, and the worsening shipboard conditions influenced the Takret Militia to withdraw. The vessel was in danger of being ripped in two by the plasma eddy when the craft finally veered away from it. Shortly thereafter, Enterprise managed to leave the storm earlier than expected, allowing all the crew to return with their belongings to the rest of the ship. (ENT: "The Catwalk")

A scene description in the final draft script of "The Catwalk" stated about the shut-down Enterprise, "It's eerie... like a ghost town." The script also didn't always specify exactly when the craft would shudder (for example, saying merely that it would do so "intermittently"), leaving it mostly up to the production team to decide precisely when.

In the final draft script of "Cease Fire", Enterprise was described as traveling through warp faster than usual, with a note pointing out that the same effect is used in "Fallen Hero". [3]

Enterprise being swallowed by a wisp ship

Later that year, Enterprise was consumed by a wisp ship while they were 150 light years from Earth. Due to being encased in the alien vessel, Enterprise had its weapons, both the phase cannons and torpedoes, and engines, both warp and impulse, disabled. Also, Enterprise's sensors were rendered unable to penetrate the other ship's hull or detect any lifeforms in the wisp craft, though the wisps themselves were actually non-corporeal beings which proceeded to inhabit officers aboard Enterprise but also released the ship.

The vessel's impulse engines were made operational shortly thereafter thanks to the engineering staff, but the fact that the wisps had captured the officers they had replaced prevented Archer from ordering the ship's departure until the missing personnel had been returned. After it was discovered that an osmium alloy which reinforced the ship's catwalk additionally shielded that area from the wisps, the uninhabited members of the crew, of whom there were fifty-eight persons, took refuge in the catwalk, leaving the possessed officers confined to quarters. Phlox managed to temporarily vent carbon dioxide into all areas except for the catwalk, which rid the vessel of the alien intruders, and Enterprise finally departed, destroying the wisp ship while leaving. (ENT: "The Crossing")

While designing the wisp ship, Doug Drexler considered how Enterprise would be depicted in relation to it. "In the script, Enterprise is described as 'caught' by a very alien looking spacecraft," he explained. "I visualized the Enterprise being attacked by an insect [...] [such as] a spider." [4](X)

In ultimately unused dialogue from the final draft script of "The Crossing", it was decided that, following its encounter with the wisp vessel, Enterprise was to resume its previous course at warp, once the crew had left the catwalk.

Shortly thereafter, Enterprise picked up a distress call from a group of Arin'Sen fugitives who had left a colony which had been annexed by the Klingon Empire. The ship docked with their Klingon transport and brought them aboard. By the time it first detected the D5-classbattle cruiserIKS Bortas approaching, Enterprise had brought all the refugees aboard, so the starship left their transport behind. In preparation for defending Enterprise, Archer ordered the ship to assume tactical alert and instructed that a torpedo be readied to ignite plasma in a nearby planetary ring system. Enterprise was subsequently attacked by the Bortas but retaliated, and a space battle ensued.

During the confrontation, Enterprise lured the Klingon vessel into the rings of the planetary ring system and, by igniting the plasma, managed to cripple the Klingon ship before escaping with the refugees. Enterprise didn't destroy the Bortas because Archer didn't consider the ship's commanding officer – Duras, son of Toral – his enemy. When Duras subsequently gave false testimony against Captain Archer, the latter's ship was referred to as "the battle cruiser Enterprise".

Duras, no longer the commander of the Bortas, had apparently warned Archer that Enterprise was "inferior" to that vessel. In Duras' version of events, Enterprise had nonetheless been the first craft to open fire. The ship was permitted to orbit Narendra III while Archer was tried there but, as soon as he was sentenced to life imprisonment on Rura Penthe, the vessel complied with orders from the Klingons that forced the craft to immediately leave, though Archer was covertly freed by Lieutenant Reed some time later. (ENT: "Judgment")

In January2153, Enterprise received orders to reverse course and make a temporary detour by nearly thirty light years, in order to study a certain planet that was about to start erupting with active volcanoes. Since the rescheduled course was going to pass near the ECS Horizon, Enterprise took ten hours off its flight path in order to briefly rendezvous with the Horizon, allowing EnsignTravis Mayweather an opportunity to make a return visit home, as he had grown up on the Horizon and most of his family still lived there. By this time, eighteen months after launching, Enterprise had visited twenty-two inhabited planets, though had not been to Trelkis III. (ENT: "Horizon")

In ultimately unused dialogue from the final draft script of "Horizon", Enterprise was referred to – when it received orders to double back – as the closest ship to the geologically active planet and the only vessel within range.

The search for the Xindi was long and perilous, taking almost a year. Enterprise was in danger much of the time in the Expanse, due to the presence of spatial anomalies generated by massive spheres in the region. (ENT: "Anomaly") It was discovered that insulating the hull with trellium-D could protect the ship from the anomalies, but unfortunately, trellium was hazardous to Vulcan neural pathways, and Captain Archer refused to let Sub-Commander T'Pol leave the ship. Hence, the shielding could not be used. (ENT: "Impulse")

In the final edit of "Anomaly", a view of Enterprise at warp is shown as the episode's first shot. However, that scene wasn't scripted. Similarly, a shot of the vessel during "movie night" in "Impulse" was scripted to show the craft at warp. However, it is depicted traveling at impulse in the final version of that shot. The final view of the ship in "Impulse", where the vessel is actually portrayed at warp, wasn't scripted.

Eventually, T'Pol discovered a way to determine or predict the spatial anomalies as well as the locations of the spheres. During an exploration to verify T'Pol's theory, decks B, C, and E were breached and decompressed. (ENT: "Exile")

In the final draft script of "Exile", Enterprise was described as traveling at warp in the episode's first view of the ship. However, the final version of that shot depicts the ship at impulse speed.

Enterprise then spent around two weeks in a polaric field, in which the ship was covered with highly charged and magneticnucleonic particles, primarily ferricions, that formed a strong particulate which generated a power-dampening dia-magnetic field capable of shutting down all shipboard systems, including life support. The crew eventually was able to use the ship's shuttlepods to tow the ship out of the field, and the nucleonic particles detached from the hull once Enterprise was clear. (ENT: "Similitude")

In the final draft script of "Similitude", a scene description regarding the appearance of the vessel while covered with nucleonic particles stated the craft was "starting to resemble an old dock piling." The same teleplay also likened the ship to "an ocean liner", with the craft's two shuttlepods likened to "a pair of tugboats about to haul [the] ocean liner from port." When the vessel finally starts "lumbering forward", the script characterized the ship as "like a behemoth stirring to life".

Afterwards, Enterprise was hijacked by Triannon fanatics with organic explosives implanted in their bodies. During the event, part of the ship's hull was damaged and one crewman died. (ENT: "Chosen Realm")

In February of 2154, Enterprise determined the location of the Xindi weapon and arrived in the Azati Prime system. (ENT: "Azati Prime") There, the ship suffered severe damage, due to attacks by multiple Xindi vessels. The ship's primary warp coil was destroyed, damage that required Captain Archer to eventually attack an Illyrian ship. That craft had a warp coil that Enterprise's crew could use, which would let them arrive on time to a meeting with Degra. (ENT: "Damage") Enterprise might have endured even more damage in the Delphic Expanse, if not for the intervention of an alternate future version of Enterprise, which had traveled 117 years into the past when attempting to use a subspace corridor. (ENT: "E²")

The members of Enterprise's crew were hailed as heroes upon returning to Earth, especially Captain Archer, for whom several schools were named. Enterprise was placed into drydock, where it began an extensive repair and refit. Modifications to the ship included a new captain's chair, an upgrade to the transporter, and repainted door panels. (ENT: "Home")

In May of 2154, a group of rogue Augments, left over from the Eugenics Wars, stole a Klingon Bird-of-Prey and killed its entire crew. The Klingon Empire threatened United Earth with war, unless the Augments were apprehended. After a debriefing and refit, Enterprise was relaunched with Arik Soong on board to try to hunt down the Augments on the border of the Orion Syndicate. After several brief firefights with Orion Interceptors, the Augments found Enterprise, took Soong aboard their ship, and set course to Cold Station 12. Enterprise pursued but failed to stop Soong from taking thousands of unborn Augment embryos. Soong then headed to the Briar Patch; however, the Augments turned on him, and headed to a Klingon colony to attempt the release of several types of pathogens into the atmosphere. Enterprise arrived in time to stop the Augments, destroying them and their Bird-of-Prey. (ENT: "Borderland", "Cold Station 12", "The Augments")

When the United Earth Embassy on Vulcan was bombed, Enterprise was ordered to the Vulcan system to investigate. The Vulcan High Command postulated that the Syrrannites had been behind the bombing. The crew discovered a bomb still in the wreckage of the embassy and confirmed that DNA of a well-known Syrrannite, T'Pau, was on the bomb, but this was later discovered to be faked. Archer and T'Pol went on a quest to find T'Pau in The Forge, leaving Enterprise in command of Commander Tucker. After challenging V'Las' evidence on the bombing, Ambassador Soval was thrown out of the High Command and decided to stay aboard the ship with the Humans.

Enterprise was eventually ordered to leave the system, and refused to do so with its captain still on the planet, causing a skirmish with the Vulcans. Soval informed Acting Captain Tucker that the Vulcan High Command was preparing to attack Andoria. Enterprise traveled to a nearby nebula where they warned the Andorians, and then assisted them when the two fleets engaged each other. The Vulcan High Command called off the attack after only a short time, due to political changes – back on their homeworld – that caused the High Command to withdraw. The discovery of the ancient texts of Surak caused the dismissal of the High Command, and Starfleet activity was no longer to be regulated by the Vulcans. (ENT: "The Forge", "Awakening", "Kir'Shara")

Some time after the Vulcan Reformation, Emory Erickson performed a major overhaul of the transporter in an experiment on Enterprise, boosting the transporter range to more than 40,000 kilometers. The upgrade replaced the old transporter control pedestal with a much more advanced control system. The upgrade turned out to be part of a ruse to try to get back his son, who had been lost in a transporter accident, many years before. (ENT: "Daedalus")

Later in 2154, Commander Tucker and Ensign Hoshi Sato were infected with a silicon-based virus while on an away mission. The virus was used by the Organians to test races, then, if passing, make first contact with them. As a result, a part of Enterprise had to be sealed off in quarantine. (ENT: "Observer Effect")

Gral and Shran eventually managed to work out their differences, and Enterprise rendezvoused with a Tellarite transport ship which returned Gral and his delegation to Tellar Prime. Enterprise continued to Andoria, where Captain Archer and Commander Shran encountered the Aenar, a blind race of telepaths. A member of the Aenar, Jhamel, returned to Enterprise with Archer and Shran, and assisted in the destruction of the drone ships which the Romulans had launched from their home system. Again, the starship journeyed to Andoria, where Shran and Jhamel left the ship. (ENT: "Babel One", "United", "The Aenar")

Enterprise returned to Earth on November 27, 2154. While there, Chief Engineer Charles Tucker transferred to the new NX-02, Columbia. On Earth, DoctorPhlox was assaulted and captured by Rigelians. Enterprise followed the warp trail of a Rigelian freighter which had left Earth, two hours after Phlox's abduction. When the starship arrived at the freighter's coordinates, the Rigelian craft had been seriously damaged and only wreckage remained.

As Enterprise's crew attempted to determine the identity of the freighter's destroyer, a Klingon vessel attacked the starship. An away team from the Klingon craft beamed aboard and sabotagedEnterprise's systems. Although the Klingons returned to their ship, Enterprise was unable to follow, due to the sabotage. (ENT: "Affliction") In the end, Enterprise was repaired thanks to a risky maneuver on the part of Columbia, when Tucker was sent back to his old ship via a grappler wire extended between the two ships while at warp.

Columbia and Enterprise then took on the mission of rescuing Phlox together. The crews were able to also save the Klingon species, with the help of Phlox, from a mutated version of a virus combined with Augment DNA. The infected Klingons were left with flat foreheads like Humans, without cranial ridges, a state from which it took almost a century for them to recover. (ENT: "Divergence")

A few days after this Klingon mission, an Orion man named Harrad-Sar came to present an offer to Archer; he would permit Starfleet use of a planet he had discovered, rich in magnesite. Starfleet would do the mining, BUT in return however he would get ten percent of the shares. To seal the deal, three Orion slave girls were given, as a gift, to Captain Archer. The girls were able to seduce the crew by controlling the men, and disable the women. Tucker and T'Pol, the only two unaffected, were able to foil their plans. Harrad-Sar came to drag Enterprise back to the Orion Syndicate, because they wanted Archer's head, whether or not it was attached to his body. The crew of Enterprise stopped him by sending a shock through the deflector temporarily disabling his ship. (ENT: "Bound")

Enterprise orbiting Earth in 2155

Enterprise was also present when Earth's leadership announced new trade relations with Vulcan, Andoria, Tellar, and Coridan, in January 2155. The members of Enterprise's crew were hailed as heroes laying the ground work for that alliance, a precursor to the formation of the United Federation of Planets. During this conference, the crew was instrumental in thwarting the militant Terra Prime organization, preventing efforts to eject all non-Humans after Terra Prime hijacked the Marsverteron array. (ENT: "Terra Prime")

It is unknown how or if Enterprise participated in the Earth-Romulan War. However, the question of Enterprise's involvement in that conflict was elaborated on in the first draft script of the aborted filmStar Trek: The Beginning, set in 2159. The ship, which was only ever referred to in dialogue and wasn't scripted to appear, was said to be at Risa during a series of Romulan attacks in the Sol system which initiated the Earth-Romulan War.

In one alternate timeline, Captain Archer's brain was infected with interspatial parasites in October of 2153. These parasites caused him to develop anterograde amnesia, and led to him being relieved of command. Sub-Commander T'Pol received a field commission from Starfleet, becoming the ship's new captain. She continued the search for the Xindi weapon.

Enterprise, severely damaged

In 2154, the crew of Enterprise learned the weapon was being built at Azati Prime. But as they drew close, the ship was attacked by two Xindi-Reptilian vessels. The ship suffered substantial damage: thirteen crew members died, including Travis Mayweather, and twenty-three were injured. In addition, the starboardnacelle was out of commission, limiting the ship to warp 1.7. By the time Enterprise reached Azati Prime at that speed, the weapon had been launched. Enterprise managed to follow it back to Earth through a subspace vortex, but the crew's efforts were in vain and Earth was destroyed.

In 2155, Enterprise led one of several convoys of survivors to Ceti Alpha V, where Humanity hoped to resettle, to escape the wrath of the Xindi. When the ship arrived there in 2156, T'Pol turned command over to Commander Tucker; the ship's new responsibility was to patrol the Ceti Alpha system. The ship was upgraded with shields provided by General Shran of the Andorian Imperial Guard.

The bridge explodes, shortly before Enterprise does

In 2165, Enterprise was attacked by Xindi forces that had finally located Ceti Alpha, just as Archer and T'Pol had returned to the ship to attempt a treatment that would cure Archer. During the treatment, it was discovered that destruction of the parasites in the present erased them in the past; curing Archer of the parasites would change history, so that he was never infected. In a desperate bid to change the timeline and save Earth, Archer and T'Pol vaporized the ship in a subspace implosion, thus preventing the parasites in Archer's brain from ever having infected him, creating a new timeline. (ENT: "Twilight")

In a different alternate timeline, the ship's trip through a subspace corridor from the Kovaalan nebula to the Xindi Council planet in February 2154 would have sent it to the year 2037. The particle wake from a damaged impulse manifold caused the corridor to shift in time. Unable to return to the present, and at pains to prevent damaging the timeline by visiting Earth, Captain Archer decided to wait in the Delphic Expanse until the ship could stop the Xindi primary weapon from attacking Earth.

To survive for all that time, Enterprise forged alliances with other species, trading its advanced technology for food and supplies. The ship even acquired alien crew members, such as Archer's wife, Esilia; his great-granddaughter remained a member of the crew. With time, the ship acquired advances from other races as well. By 2154, its atmosphere processors had been doubled in efficiency, it acquired an isomagnetic collector from the Ikaarans, and it had a tractor beam installed. In addition, Haradin traders provided the technology to upgrade the plasma injectors and allow the ship to reach warp 6.9 for a brief time, but the ship's injectors were too old to take the stress, and so they couldn't use the technology. The ship had been repeatedly detected by Xindi tracking stations, but the readings were never confirmed.

By 2153, all of the original crew had died except for T'Pol, now more in touch with her emotions than she had been in the past. Lorian was in command of the ship, Karyn Archer was executive officer and pilot, and Greer was tactical officer. Enterprise's crew tried to stop the Xindi probe from being launched at Earth, but Lorian gave the order to ram it too late, and the probe departed. In 2154, Enterprise rendezvoused with the Enterprise of that time period, just before it entered the corridor.

Lorian provided Archer with the Haradin specifications, but the future T'Pol intervened, showing that performing the upgrade was too dangerous. She suggested Enterprise upgrade its impulse manifold to reduce particle wake, but Lorian refused to let Archer carry out the plan; he stole the 2154 ship's injectors to use them himself. The two Enterprises deadlocked in space battle, and Lorian eventually relented, agreeing to follow Archer's plan; Archer's Enterprise made it safely through the corridor. (ENT: "E²")

The fate of Lorian's Enterprise is unknown. It may have been destroyed by the Kovaalans it was fighting at last sight, it may have escaped, or it may have been erased from history by allowing the 2154 Enterprise to make it through the corridor.

In the final draft script of "E²", this version of Enterprise was commonly referred to as "Enterprise-2" and was described thus; "Although identical to our ship in many ways, this Enterprise is more than a century old... its well-worn and battlescarred... and its hull has been modified in places with alien technology." Regarding the vessel's interior, the script commented, "This ship has a distinctive 'lived-in' feel... the lighting is different, some panels on the wall have been modified with alien technology [....] This ship is a little more crowded than our Enterprise."

Among the first thoughts that Star Trek: Enterprise co-creator Rick Berman had for the series that became Enterprise was that he wanted the new series to be set on a spaceship that was heading out rather than making a return journey home, in order to differentiate the craft from the likes of Deep Space 9 and the USS Voyager. (Star Trek: Communicator issue 134, p. 12) Having considered alternatives such as focusing the series on an era before there were ships or instead featuring a fleet of ships, Berman and fellow series co-creator Brannon Braga finally selected the idea that was to become Enterprise. "We decided to make it the first warp five starship," Braga noted. ("Broken Bow" audio commentary, ENT Season 1 DVD/Blu-ray)

The alternate realityUSS Enterprise: the "hero" ship that succeeded the NX-class Enterprise in reality, and a vessel which, unlike its immediate predecessor, was depicted as being built on Earth

Rick Berman originally imagined the series as following the ship's construction on Earth, an idea Brannon Braga also wanted to see actualized. They were interested in making either all or most of the series' first season focus on the building of the vessel – which was, at that time, conceived as Earth's first warp 5 capable starship – and for the ship's development to be controversial among the Humans who were on Earth. The ship would have been depicted as launching after its construction was completed. Because executives at Paramount favored a more conventional setting for the new Star Trek series, however, the starship's launch was in the pilot episode "Broken Bow". ("To Boldly Go: Launching Enterprise, Part I: Countdown", ENT Season 1 Blu-ray special features)

The dropped concept of showing Enterprise's construction thrilled Manny Coto. "That would have been fascinating, to see Enterprise built, to start from scratch, from the very beginning," he enthused. Coto, a long-time fan of how Romulan scopes are used in TOS: "Balance of Terror" without a viewscreen, also wished that Enterprise initially had had no viewscreen, with tubes similar to the Romulan devices instead being used by the crew to look outside the vessel, and that a viewscreen had been installed on the ship during the course of the series. ("Before Her Time: Decommissioning Enterprise, Part One: New Voices", ENT Season 4 Blu-ray special features)

The fact that the NX-class Enterprise was planned to be the focus of a weekly series, which viewers would hopefully watch each week, meant that the design of its bridge was purposefully made to look comfortable and less claustrophobic than a submarine interior. (Star Trek: Communicator issue 134, p. 76) Production Designer Herman Zimmerman contemplated the importance of the vessel's lineage while orchestrating the ship's design. He subsequently mused, "In the case of Star Trek, it's a special kind of vehicle – no pun intended – for storytelling because it has such a rich history." (Broken Bow, paperback ed., p. 261) Both the historical significance of the vessel and how the craft was to be focused on in the show meant the ship not only needed to look like a realistic precursor of Captain Kirk's USS Enterprise but also "had to be interesting and something that the Star Trek fans would find exciting," in Rick Berman's words. (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 2, Issue 7, p. 13)

The unrefined approval model of Enterprise

Enterprise was the first "hero" ship in a Star Trek series for which the development of its design was aided by CGI. (Star Trek: Communicator issue 136, p. 34) The fact that the ship was planned to be portrayed on-screen over the course of seven years was not on CGI illustrator Doug Drexler's mind, though, as he set to work on creating a preliminary approval CGI model of the vessel, which he originally assumed would serve merely as a quick mock-up. (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 2, Issue 10, p. 26)

The UPN press kit promoting the series included a blurred photograph that seemed to be of a door or a corridor aboard the ship, which stirred up online fan speculation about what the image showed. Rick Berman later responded, "That's actually funny. We had no art which was approved at that point and that was an out-of-focus picture that was actually taken on one of our sets." (Star Trek: Communicator issue 134, p. 15) The prototype CG model of the ship garnered promotion for the vessel, prior to the launch of the series. "It appeared very early on in print before the high resolution model was ready," offered Doug Drexler. [6](X) The vessel's early publicity also included Archer actor Scott Bakula giving Entertainment Tonight a tour of the Enterprise sets. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 33, No. 5, p. 19)

The uncertainty over how Enterprise would look was immediately apparent to Mike Sussman and Phyllis Strong as they set to work on writing "Strange New World", the first regular episode of Star Trek: Enterprise. Hence, Sussman's first thought straight after they wrote "EXT. SPACE – ENTERPRISE" was to wonder what the ship actually looked like. [7]

Although both Herman Zimmerman and Doug Drexler favored a slightly bronze tint for Enterprise's hull, this coloration was altered after they sent the approval CG model of the craft to Foundation Imaging, to be refined into the high resolution version of the ship, for production. Regarding the alteration in color, Drexler later conceded, "I don’t know where that change originated." [8](X)

At the time the high-resolution model was created, Enterprise was technically the most photo-realistic ship ever built for Star Trek. Fully meaning for that eventual model to be shown over the projected seven-year series run, Foundation Imaging attempted to make it as detailed as they possibly could. (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 2, Issue 10, pp. 25 & 26)

No practical studio models of Enterprise were ever made for the series; it was the first Star Trek main ship to be depicted without the creation of a practical model. However, Doug Drexler did create a paper miniature of the vessel, a study model for Foundation Imaging to view what the ship would probably look like from certain angles. (Star Trek Monthly issue 86, pp. 21 & 22)

In the revised final draft script of "Broken Bow", Enterprise was to be introduced with a close-up on a small section of the ship's hull, followed by the camera pulling back and action continuing from that point on. This doesn't match how the craft is introduced in the final version of the episode. However, the script did make it clear, in that and subsequent scenes, that the ship was only ever to be partly shown prior to its launch (which was described as "Our first full view of the majestic ship"), which is true of how the vessel is depicted in the episode's final edit. [9]

As scripted for ENT penultimate episode "Terra Prime" and series finale "These Are the Voyages...", Enterprise was to be depicted in the last shot of both episodes in a slightly different way to how it is shown on screen at the conclusion of those two installments. For instance, the final draft script of "Terra Prime" had Enterprise, in the episode's final view of the ship, travel from the dark side of Earth to the side of the planet illuminated by Sol. In the final edit of the episode, though, Enterprise goes the opposite way, traveling from the light side of Earth to the darkened part. Also, Enterprise is traveling towards a blue nebula in the series' last shot of the vessel, though no such nebula was mentioned in the final draft script of "These Are the Voyages...".

Doug Drexler had a concept for the development of Enterprise that was never used on the show. "My idea was that at the end of the fourth season, the ship would put into drydock for a major refit," he explained. "After four years, out there, dealing with unknowns, it would be time to upgrade the ship based on everything they had learned." [10](X) Drexler later assisted in the production of models of this "(SS) Enterprise NX-01 Refit" for Polar Lights and the Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection. A CG render of the ship also appeared in the Star Trek: Ships of the Line calendar.

The Artisan prop and model shop of Quantum Mechanix, QMx FX Cinema Arts, was asked to illustrate the history of space flight with models for Star Trek Into Darkness. The NX-class Enterprise was included in the models constructed, of which there were fourteen different classes in total. On the organization's website, there was a picture of the ship. [24]

In novels set after the events of the Terra Prime crisis – during which it is revealed that Tucker's death was faked and future records altered so that he could investigate Romulan activity – Enterprise is involved in several major battles during the Earth-Romulan War up until the climactic Battle of Cheron in 2160, during which she was crippled by the Romulan flagship, sustaining such serious damage that she had to be decommissioned. (To Brave the Storm; A Choice of Futures) She is subsequently acquired by the Smithsonian Institution for its orbital annex, being meticulously restored with many interior surfaces covered in plastic to protect them from contact by visiting tourists. (A Choice of Futures)

Enterprise is featured in the first few levels of the Star Trek: Encounters video game. Its levels are based off of the third season of Enterprise, and involve the search for and destruction of the Xindi weapon, as well as defeating the plans of the Sphere-Builders. In addition, Enterprise appears in the game's last level, when a temporal anomaly appears near Earth. When the anomaly causes the USS Enterprise-E to vanish, Enterprise is left alone to battle a fleet of Dominion warships. In the end, Enterprise NX-01 joins forces with the USS Enterprise-A, Enterprise-E, the USS Defiant, and USS Voyager to defeat a combined Xindi, Klingon, Romulan, Dominion, and Borg fleet.